Body found on beach in Jupiter, police confirm

When volunteers showed up for a routine monthly beach clean-up Saturday morning, they discovered police had taped off a swath of access points to the shoreline. Then they learned the gruesome reason: There was a dead body on the beach.

Jupiter police said a passerby discovered the body on the 3000 block of A1A, between Ocean Way and Marcinski Road, and called 911 just before 7 a.m. Investigators did not release the identity of the deceased or the cause of death.

It was the second macabre discovery along beaches near the Jupiter Inlet in less than a week. A severed human foot, still tucked into a New Balance white sneaker, was found on the Jupiter Island beach on New Year’s Day. And days earlier, on Dec. 27, a couple shelling on the beach in Tequesta found a human leg bone, a discovery which remains under investigation.

They are not, Martin County Sheriff William Snyder, whose office is handling the human foot investigation, said through a spokeswoman. A Jupiter Police spokesman would not say whether the body was intact.

Shary Carothers, a dutiful beach clean-up team volunteer with the Friends of Jupiter Beach, arrived on the clean-up site to find at least 10 police units on the scene. They had cordoned off the quarter-mile stretch between beach access points 38 to 44, north of Marcinski Road, she said.

She had watched the sunrise at Carlin Park at 7:10 a.m., picked up her first batch of debris and headed south to join about 150 other volunteers who were gathering at a beach pavilion near Marcinski Road and State Road A1A. She was expecting the usual: a haul of trash, sea debris and the kinds of tossed belongings she’s grown accustomed to discovering on clean-up days.

“We find lots of panties. We found dentures once,” said Carothers, who like her fellow volunteers was forced to work around the cordoned-off areas.

Mariani, a Friends of Jupiter Beach board member who helps serve a breakfast of fruit and fresh-baked goods at the first-Saturday beach clean-ups, said this weekend’s clean-up session was abuzz with speculation and short on information.

“We didn’t hear anything at all,” she said.

This is the patch of beach where she spends time with Buffet, her 7-year-old, 75-pound, female hound mix. It’s the place where she meets friends from a large community of dog beach devotees, a beach known for its dedicated volunteer force.

Saturday’s grim find, as the one some about 15 miles north, won’t change the way Mariani feels about her beach.

“They are freak incidents. Our area has never been one where these things happen regularly. I’ve never felt in danger there,” she said.